Boards

srsly, the prices are large but how do they get the cash? i mean, for example, i could buy a ticket right now in aberdeen for a train to london kings cross and scotrail would take the money. i'd use their trains to get to carlisle... but then my ticket allows me to use any other companies trains to get from there to london? i don't know how northern rail/overground/connect or anyone like that would get any money from my ticket... even though i paid for it?

1. Because they’ve caused ‘chaos’ and a ‘fiasco’ by having a couple of days of delays on the West Coast Mainline when essential staff had to be redeployed after an aeroplane crashed into some power lines.

2. They were created by the Labour government through nationalising a failing Conservative-created private company.

In a roundabout way. The West Coast Mainline reopened to a big fanfare just before Christmas. As with all multi-billion pound projects, there is a period at the beginning when faults are much more likely. Unfortunately, a plane hit the lines near Rugby at the end of last week (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/02/plane-crash-west-coast-mainline), causing several days of delays, which then had a knock-on effect meaning that the problem on the line on Wednesday (when power cables were damaged near Watford) weren’t picked up as swiftly as they might have been. Predictably, the Evening Standard threw a tizzy.